Please note: This is an anonymous response to an online survey; I do not have any way of contacting the respondent or verifying responses. Their answers may reflect good, bad, or middling hiring practices. I invite you to take what’s useful and leave the rest. If you are someone who hires Library, Archives or other LIS workers, please consider giving your own opinion by filling out the survey here.
Current Hiring Practices and Organizational Needs
These questions are about your current hiring practices in general – the way things have been run the last year or two (or three).
Where do you advertise your job listings?
Our institution’s job portal, LinkedIn, professional organization listservs, listservs and job boards for LIS grad school programs
Do you notice a difference in application quality based on where the applicant saw the job ad?
Sometimes. Applicants who find the positions via a professional association search or a referral from a friend to our job portal tend to submit more complete applications than those who find us via LinkedIn
Do you include salary in the job ad?
√ Other: Our institutional job portal doesn’t, but we have received permission to include the salary range online when required.
Do you use keyword matching or any automation tools to reduce the number of applications a human reads while considering candidates?
√ No
Do you consider candidates who don’t meet all the requirements listed in the job ad?
√ No
Does your workplace require experience for entry-level librarian positions? (Officially or unofficially…)
√ Yes
What is the current most common reason for disqualifying an applicant without an interview?
Limited or no experience in libraries
Does your organization use one-way interviews? (Sometimes also called asynchronous or recorded interviews)
√ No
Do you provide interview questions before the interview?
√ No
Does your interview process include taking the candidate out for a meal?
√ Yes
How much of your interview process is virtual?
√ First round/Initial Screen
Do you (or does your organization) give candidates feedback about applications or interview performance?
√ Other: When requested, we try
What is the most important thing for a job hunter to do in order to improve their hirability?
Submit all of the materials requested in the job description and communicate well. It’s amazing how many candidates have to be disqualified because they did not complete information and do not respond.
I want to hire someone who is:
Dependable
Your Last Recruitment
These are questions about the last person you hired (or the last position you attempted to fill). This person may not have been a librarian, and that’s ok.
Think about the most recent time you participated in hiring someone (or an attempt to hire someone) at your organization. What was the title of the position you were trying to fill?
Archivist
When was this position hired?
√ We were not able to fill the position
Approximately how many people applied for this position?
√ 25 or fewer
Approximately what percentage of those would you say were hirable?
√ 25% or less
And how would you define “hirable”?
Meets most of the requirements for the position and aligns with the values of our institution
How did the recruitment for this position compare with recruitments in previous years?
Comparable applications to a few years ago, though shared in a wider variety of places
Your Workplace
This section asks for information about your workplace, including if you have lost positions in the last decade.
How many staff members are at your library/organization?
√ 10-50
Are you unionized?
√ No
How many permanent, full time job openings has your workplace posted in the last year?
√ 7 or more
How many permanent, full time librarian (or other “professional” level) jobs has your workplace posted in the last year?
√ 2
Can you tell us how the number of permanent, full-time positions at your workplace has changed over the past decade?
√ There are fewer positions
Have any full-time librarian positions been replaced with part-time or hourly workers over the past decade?
√ Other: They have been replaced with temporary/year contract full-time librarians
Have any full-time librarian positions been replaced with non-librarian, lower paid staff positions over the past decade?
√ I don’t know
Is librarianship a dying profession?
√ No
Why or why not?
There seems to be continued interest in the field and many places hiring, plus graduate school programs still filling, but less full-time, permanent library positions. This speaks to a need and a workforce for librarianship, but a devaluing of traditional models of librarianship.
Demographics
This section asks for information about you specifically.
What part of the world are you in?
√ Midwestern US
What’s your region like?
√ Suburban area
What type of institution do you hire for (check all that apply):
√ Academic Library,
√ Archives
Are you a librarian?
√ Yes
Are you now or have you ever been:
√ A hiring manager (you are hiring people that you will directly or indirectly supervise),
√ A member of a hiring or search committee